


The Secret Life of Cats and Dogs

by Guede



Series: Cats and Dogs [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Cock Warming, Derek Owns A Dog Named Sourwolf, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub Undertones, Dubious Morality, F/M, Full Shift Werewolves, House Hunting, Humor, Interspecies Romance, M/M, Overstimulation, Pack Dynamics, Polyamory, Rimming, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Stiles Named It, Tails, Werecat Stiles, Werecats, Werewolf Biology, Werewolf Culture, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-15 18:55:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8068855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: Peter and Stiles want to buy a condo, but they’re facing three other bidders.  Peter refuses to accept this.(What does this have to do with cats and dogs?  Well, if Peter has a pack of werewolves and a pride of werecats at his disposal, do you really think he won’t go there?)9/25/16: Added short post-fic bonus scene with hairball humor.





	1. Chapter 1

Stiles, his eyes wide and thrilled, suddenly closes his hands around Peter’s arm as if he’s kneading his scratching post. Which is more than a little painful, seeing as said scratching post has a steel core and Peter’s arm does not, but as Stiles is also making small, mewling, faintly orgasmic noises, Peter decides he’ll put up with it.

[People are forever confusing tolerance with healing, as if the ability to have one’s flesh instantly reknit is one and the same with the ability to ignore the screaming of your mauled nerves. Granted, it doesn’t help that werewolf culture encourages an aura of stoicism, as if a stiff upper lip ever saved anyone. In Peter’s experience, putting a brave face on it is most effective when paired with a handy deus ex machina, or at the very least, a reasonable future payoff.]

“Oh, my God,” Stiles moans, sagging against Peter’s side. His fingers still are doing their damnedest to twist Peter’s muscles off the bone, but he’s also compulsively rubbing his cheek against Peter’s shoulder, joy-scenting in his excitement. “Oh, my God. Is that real? That can’t be real, are you kidding me, with the skylights and the self-cleaning sandbox and the grass underheating, that’s like taking a cake and icing it and then scooping an entire freezer of ice cream on top. With homemade fudge sauce. And sprinkles. And brownie bites.”

“Yes, it’s real,” Peter says. With a minimum of wincing, he’s rather pleased to note. “The lights run off the solar panels, and I understand that the gray-water system both supplies the irrigation system and helps offset heating costs, and—”

Stiles releases Peter’s arm and bounds forward, through the greenhouse doors and into the narrow aisle separating verdant stocks of catnip and basil, till he’s perched on the rim of the fishpond. He leans over the water till his slightly crazed grin is nearly touching the surface, then sits back and purrs so loudly that it covers up the pained noise Peter can’t help making as the blood rushes back into his arm.

“Fish,” Stiles says as Peter walks up behind him.

“Tilapia at the moment, but I think we could adapt it for whatever species we want,” Peter says.

Stiles twists around on his heels, still with that grin on his face. He looks up at Peter, then lifts his hands to plant them against Peter’s ribs. “ _Fish_ ,” he says again.

“Well, within limits,” Peter amends. “I know you love your salmon and tuna, but I don’t think saltwater is possible.”

“Peter,” Stiles says, his hands sliding firmly up over Peter’s chest and then sneaking into and under Peter’s shirt-collar. He leans up, his thumbs stroking up along the tendons of Peter’s neck, starting trails of heat that sink deep and then spread, and nearly touches their mouths together. “Peter. This is _perfect_.”

“Yes, I know, I found it,” Peter says.

“You smug, sexy asshole,” Stiles snorts. His eyes clear of their dazed wonder and narrow, their pupils slitting just long enough for Peter to glance sideways to check how far the nearest breakable object is.

Then Stiles hauls himself up around Peter, legs twining tightly about Peter’s waist as his mouth fastens onto Peter’s mouth. His hands come out of Peter’s shirt to twist Peter’s head back towards him. Peter groans and backs up, and then they test the structural integrity of one of the glass walls, which lives up to its billing as impervious to hurricane-level pounding. They also confirm that the ventilation system is more than adequate, despite being two years old. As the realtor had said, it should be good throughout the life of its warranty.

“So when do we get this place?” Stiles says, helping Peter down the stairs.

“I thought you might like it, so I had the agent prepare the application ahead of time and that’s ready to send in. The bank’s already preapproved—know three members of the board so I don’t think that—that will—Stiles.” Peter fights back a groan and nearly trips himself face-first down the stairs. “Stiles. I can’t buy a condo if I’m—”

“What, sexed out?” Stiles purrs, continuing to lap and suck his way from just behind Peter’s ear down the hairline to Peter’s nape. His teeth press softly into Peter’s throat, and when Peter stumbles again, Stiles loops his arm around Peter’s waist and stuffs one hand into the front pocket of Peter’s trousers, his fingers brushing deep enough to catch Peter’s still sensitive cock. “But Peter, I _like_ it, I wanna show you, you found a _good_ one and I wanna _thank_ you and I can totally smell your hole, you know, you’re totally dripping out and you smell like all that catnip now and I wanna _eat_ you.”

[Do werecats have an oral fixation? Well, contrary to the popular use of the term, a fixation generally connotes an unnatural, irrational, unreasonable interest in something. Werecats, however, use their tongues more extensively than humans for a variety of anatomically-grounded reasons, superhuman senses of taste and smell being just the least of them. So to call it a fixation is a sign of ignorance at best, an expression of a grossly human-biased perspective at worst.

Does Peter have an oral fixation? Well, he’d point you to the fact that, although werewolves aren’t quite as gifted in the lingual area as werecats, they do have some of the same supernatural traits. As for whether Peter instead has a fixation with _Stiles’_ oral abilities, well…he doesn’t care to share such things. So sorry, but not sorry.]

“Mmm, so, you really think we can get that place?” Stiles says some time later, as he curls up over Peter in the backseat of Peter’s car. His tail flicks out over his head, fluffs itself, and then gradually floats down to rest across Peter’s thigh and part of Peter’s buttock. Stiles grunts as Peter whines and twitches, adjusts his weight, and then puts his tail right back on those freshly licked-to-chafing spots. “I mean, it was really awesome. I know you said not to worry about the budget, but a place like that, seriously, there have to be competing bids, right? This is a great area too, near your office and my stuff too.”

Peter struggles to get enough breath for speech, and then, when he’s just gotten a full lung’s worth, he wastes it whimpering as Stiles nibbles on his nape. Stiles pets him absently, one arm swinging down next to Peter—oh, he’s digging out his water bottle. He gives Peter a couple squirts, then sucks noisily at it himself.

“Not to fear,” Peter finally mumbles. “I have—have it in hand.”

“You sure?” Stiles says, lowering the bottle. “I mean, ‘cause I know I said the pride’s super-busy, but I think I can pry Lydia out of things, or maybe Erica if we gotta scare the board—”

“Stiles.” Peter pushes his face into the backseat. Oddly, the increased lack of air seems to restore his senses quicker than trying to breathe did. “Stiles. I will take care of it.”

“Okay, okay, I trust you,” Stiles says. He shifts over enough to allow Peter to roll onto his side, then nudges the water bottle into Peter’s chest. “Just saying, you know, if you need help.”

“Yes, and I do appreciate it,” Peter says. He cants his head up as he takes in a little more water, just to see Stiles’ eyes laze over the stretch of his throat, and then allows himself to push his head against Stiles’ shoulder on the way down. “But you can trust me, Stiles. It’ll be ours and you won’t need to do a thing.”

“Okay,” Stiles says, smiling. “I’ll just leave you to it, then.”

Peter smiles back, though that ends a little strained as his back and thighs suddenly spasm with cramped muscles. He arches to relieve them and Stiles’ eyes dip to something on his chest, and then Stiles drops his head.

“Sorry, missed a spot,” Stiles says over Peter’s half-exhausted, half-eager whining, lapping at Peter. “Let me just…oh, whoops, there’s another one…”

Once they get out of the parking lot, Stiles insists on driving Peter back to his apartment and helping Peter into the shower. Then he has to leave for a pride meeting, and he takes Peter’s car with him, since, as he points out, the upholstery-cleaning bill is on him this time. So all in all, it’s not till the next day that Peter sits down with the realtor to go over their bid, but Peter isn’t terribly concerned. This might not be the heart of his family’s territory, but he’s hardly a neophyte when it comes to manipulating private enterprise and local infrastructure, and even before he scheduled the walk-through with Stiles, he’d taken steps to ensure that the listing would remain available.

“Yes, three competing bids,” the realtor tells him. “And don’t start waving your family’s reputation in my face, Mr. Hale, I’ve been working the were community for a long time and I know. But there was nothing I could do. The bylaws state, very clearly, that if—”

“I know what the bylaws state,” Peter says irritably. “Which is why I don’t understand why we’re sitting here instead of going to the board.”

The realtor gives him a flatly unimpressed stare, and when he lets his eyes glow a little, her stare gets even flatter and more slit-pupiled. And then she lets her semi-clear inner eyelids shuttle across her eyes from corner to corner, rather than up and down, and Peter silently curses the canine instincts that make him stiffen.

[Peter does a fair amount of business with were-reptilians, partly thanks to his sister’s reputation as an all-were activist, and partly because of his own opinion that he’ll happily deal with talent that fearful idiots are letting go to waste. But sometimes, very privately, he thinks that that is one community which isn’t really as displeased with folkloric stereotypes as it could be.]

“Because,” the realtor says very slowly. She doesn’t drag out her ‘esses’ but she does continue to give him that dry stare. “The bylaws state, in order to combat housing discrimination, that owners faced with competing bids within a certain range of each other have to inform the board of _all_ bids. So either you raise your offer beyond your preapproved loan amount, or you fight it out with the other three before the board.”

“I see,” Peter says after a moment’s thought. “And when will the board be meeting on this?”

“I’m working on that, but based on past experience, I’d say two to three weeks from now,” the realtor says, her eyes going back to normal. “I’ll see what I can find on these competing bids, too.”

“Yes, please do,” Peter says, getting up. “I’m very interested to see who I’ll be facing.”

* * *

Look, John is a responsible man. If he says he’ll do something, he does it, and that especially applies to his work as the sheriff. He doesn’t shirk his duties.

But he’s a regular guy too, and sometimes, when it’s sunny out and there’s just enough of a breeze to bring in the aroma of the nearby woods, so he can compare it to the stale, old-coffee-and-copper-wire smell of his office…so he piles some files into his car and decides to catch up on the paperwork somewhere else. It still gets done, and he gets in some extra community-interaction time too. And keeping in touch with the people he protects and serves is the key to the job, never mind all the politics and the magico-technology his son keeps throwing at him.

“Do you actually tell people that?” Chris mutters, though he doesn’t stop snuggling up to John, head pillowed on John’s chest, one arm thrown over John’s waist to play half-hearted slap-catch with John’s tail-tip. “I don’t really see what this is telling you about the state of the town.”

“It’s telling me that even new residents feel pretty comfortable in their skins, if they’re okay with shifting out and running around the woods in broad daylight,” John says, folding a page of the incident report over.

He can tell Chris is rolling his eyes by how the man’s lashes tickle against his chest. “John, I got out and climbed a pole and saved a possum from frying and shorting out the power to half the town. I was shifted for all of five minutes.”

“And you looked pretty good that way,” John says. “Didn’t freeze up till you were about halfway down.”

“Yeah, well, my shift didn’t come with margay ankles,” Chris mutters, shoving his head further down John’s breastbone. The tips of his ears are pink, and there’s a dull flush spreading down from his hairline. “Should’ve kept the claws out, should know better.”

“Chris, even the IRS considers you a new-bitten for at least another year,” John says. “You’re gonna lose shift at the wrong time, it just happens. Honestly, my first couple years, I was glad as hell this comes with accelerated healing because the number of bones I broke—”

The only warning John gets is a sudden twitch of the muscles in Chris’ back. Then John is sitting up, cursing and wiping at the blood dripping from healing pinpricks in his shoulders, while next to him, his SUV gently rocks in place, settling down after taking in a catapulting werecat. John grimaces and grabs his clothes, takes a quick glance to check that Chris is at least not _under_ the car—he left the back open, but Chris is one of the twitchier ones—and then grudgingly climbs to his feet. By then he’s identified the oncoming person by scent as well as by footstep.

[Along with a more diverse range of body types than werewolves show, werecats often differ in their abilities. Chris is jumpy partly because he has extremely keen hearing, even better than Stiles and Lydia eavesdropping about politically sensitive cases, and John may have hopefully invested in a pair of high-end noise-canceling headphones for the man’s upcoming birthday. Like his mother, Stiles has lightning reflexes and a flexibility that makes even other werecats cringe in awe—as well as an intuition for trouble that just makes John grateful Scott is so steady, and the women are so good at cover-ups. Melissa and Erica and Lydia and Heather each have their strengths, but their strongest point is their eerie ability to wordlessly coordinate someone else’s demise.

As for John, he’s not as fast or as sensitive or as clever as any of them, but he gets by.

He’ll admit that having a lion’s vocal range is pretty damn helpful. It’s not just having a deep growl, it’s about how you use the resonance, and he can rattle nerves with the best of them.]

“Peter,” John says, and he’s more than a little gratified to see his son’s partner hesitate at the gravelly undertones in his voice. “What brings you out here? Is it on my kid’s behalf?”

“Well, yes,” Peter says, trotting out one of those seamlessly reassuring smiles of his. “Though not in the pejorative sense, I assure you. In fact, Stiles doesn’t know that I’m coming to you, and I’d prefer if he continued to not know.”

John finishes doing up the last button on his shirt, then looks up with raised brows. “And that’s supposed to make me think this isn’t trouble?”

“We’ve finally found a condo,” Peter says. He’s still smiling, but he’s scaled back on the ingratiating sheen to it, and his tone is direct enough. “It’s perfect, close to his lab so he won’t have to move again when he graduates, and he’s seen it and he loves it. The only problem is there are three other bids. Now, I _could_ request an advance on my share of the pack reserve funds and raise our bid—”

He’s playing John like a damn fiddle, John can see that clear as day, and yet, John can’t help stiffening up. “I thought you and Stiles agreed on a strict budget.”

“Yes, we did, and I do understand the reasons behind that,” Peter says. He takes a discreet step forward, body language non-confrontational but still insistent. “I appreciate your pride’s welcome, John, and I want to respect your ways, since you’ve done us the kindness of respecting mine. But…Stiles really adored the place. I wish you could have seen his face…he hasn’t been excited about any of the other listings, but this one, he was talking about how he could picture babysitting little werecats in the greenhouse, showing them how to swipe fish out of the pond…”

John doesn’t make that startled, stifled-outrage of a grunt, but he honestly wishes he had. “I get the picture, Peter. He really wants it, but you don’t have the money.”

“Well, not without testing our pride-pack relations, and I’d rather not do that,” Peter says.

[The Hales are an Old-World bloodline with the killer instinct to survive long enough to get filthy rich, and the smarts to export it to America. Claudia’s family went back just as far, but they had to ditch most of their money escaping World War II, and then they moved around a lot; Stiles is the first one who’s decided to stay put. John raised his kid to have a decent lifestyle, and Stiles and the women are looking to improve on that by a country mile, but it’s still a few years before they’ll get there. In the meantime, they’re careful about who they owe and how much, even with those closest to them. It’s nothing personal, it’s just that you can’t be a power in your own right if somebody else has a hold on you. And Talia Hale, for all her nonprofit work, is still a powerful alpha at the end of the day.

All of which is to say, Peter’s being very diplomatic about the whole thing. Still doesn’t mean it doesn’t irk the hell out of John. He’d never stop trying to make the world safer, but he does wish it paid more.]

“I can tell you’ve got some other idea,” John sighs. “You’re getting that same look Stiles does.”

“Oh, not an _idea_ ,” Peter says, making his eyes a little wider. He doesn’t look the least bit more innocent. “Just a thought. Just, well, really, who are these other bidders? If they’re morally upstanding types, then of course we can’t do anything but plead our case to the housing board. But if there is any problem in their background—you know, the building’s only a ten-minute walk from Stiles’ lab, and I’m sure the residents come down to that area to eat and shop. There’s that square nearby, very popular, and even if we don’t get the place, he’s bound to run into the winning bidders…”

John presses his lips together for a second. “Yeah, I see. But you know it’s unethical and illegal for me to use county resources for personal use.”

“Even if it’s likely to be a community matter, as well?” Peter says. “I don’t see how it’s any different from you keeping tabs on hunters.”

“You’re pushing it, Peter,” John says, letting some of that subvocal aggression get out into the open.

Peter smiles and puts up his hands, backing up. “Well, all right, it was just a thought. The board won’t meet on it for at least a week, so I suppose I’ll just try and think of something else. Stiles _did_ love the place, and I try to get him what he wants.”

“Yeah, you do,” John mutters, watching him walk away. “I’ll give you that one.”

He waits till Peter is out of earshot, then heaves a sigh. Pulls out his phone to text Lydia or Melissa, then remembers they’re both tied up today and puts his phone back.

“I guess it would look bad if you looked them up,” Chris says. When John turns around, the other man’s crawled up to peer around the edge of the SUV. He’s got his shirt on, but not his pants, and when John’s eyes drop, Chris flushes again. Then screws up his face in irritation and crouches down to bat under the SUV till he drags up his jeans. “But it wouldn’t be unethical if somebody who wasn’t a cop did.”

“Just illegal,” John says, coming to lean by the open back of the car. He reaches out and picks off a crumpled leaf from Chris’ thigh, just before Chris would’ve stuffed his leg in his jeans and gotten that trapped in the crotch. Gets a smack on the back of the hand and a mock-warning growl. “If you’re talking accessing official records without authorization.”

Chris shrugs. “Well, can’t have everything and still get things done, John.”

“Seriously?” John says.

For a second longer, Chris messes with his jeans. Then he leaves off them, even though his cock’s still half-out his undone fly, and looks up at John. “I’ve talked about what I do—what I’ve done—to make sure Allison will be safe. And I heard him same as you, I know he’s got his own interests, but I could see your tail moving. You were worried.”

“My…oh, goddamn it,” John hisses, shifting said tail away. Then he sighs and rubs his hand over his face, and looks at Chris again. “Yeah. Yeah, well, Stiles tends to attract trouble. And he’s been talking up him and Peter moving in together for months now…he loves the guy. That whole budget thing, it’s as much about him not wanting to put Peter in a sticky spot with Talia Hale as it is about keeping us out of debt.”

“I’m not judging,” Chris says simply. For a hunter, John starts to think, and then he shakes his head because he’s known Chris long enough, he knows Chris probably hasn’t ever been reducible to just that one word. “Just observing.”

“Like you’d do if we happened to go back and get the spare set of clothes from my office, and I just happened to leave you alone with the computer and the file cabinets?” John snorts. “Hell, I’ll just do it myself, at this point the window-dressing would just look silly.”

Chris looks at him, then shrugs and goes back to tidying up. “Well, true,” he mutters, tugging at his jeans. “Though I was also talking about, sometimes the private sector’s got resources you guys don’t.”

“Oh?” John says.

“You don’t have to make that damn noise, I know that now,” Chris says, reaching out and giving John’s chest a little push. So maybe John’s leaning in and making a purring noise, well, so Chris isn’t really pushing hard. And when he doesn’t move John one inch, his hand doesn’t drop off so much as skate down to hook into John’s waistband. “You said Allison and I are pride now, so…why not?”

John smiles. “Sounds a lot more fun than correcting my deputies’ punctuation.”

[Peter knew Chris was there. John and Chris both know that; John’s been a werecat for way too long to get hopeful about a were missing a scent trail like that out of sheer distraction, and Chris started out as a hereditary hunter. But it’s for Stiles, after all, so John will forgive the manipulative son of a bitch dating his son just this once.

He just might, once he’s researched these other bidders, drop a word to the women about _exactly_ why the pride is footing additional money for off-the-books investigations this month.]

* * *

“Well, well, well, I don’t think they would have mentioned _that_ on their application,” Peter’s realtor chortles, paging through the report that John provided.

Her smile is wide enough that Peter suspects she’s partially shifted her jaw hinge. “I suppose it’s difficult to find the right words to explain your last housing board sued you for embezzling management funds,” he says. “I take it that you also think we should let the board know? Out of a general concern, of course—I don’t want to be seen as—”

“Sabotaging a competing bid?” the realtor says. She pulls her lips down over her teeth and levels a dryly knowing look at him over the top of the report. “Of course not, Mr. Hale. And no, I don’t think we should tell the board.”

Peter blinks, then sits forward. But before he can say anything, the realtor snaps the report down on her desk, cutting through his inhale.

“I know the bidder’s agent and I’m quite sure that he has no idea either. Calvin can be a bit of a hardass, but he wouldn’t risk his reputation knowingly representing a client like that,” she says. “I’ll have a word with him and the bid will be withdrawn. No need for the board to ever know, I think it’s better that way. Especially if you don’t want it to get back to them who dug this up.”

“Ah,” Peter says, sitting back. “Well, I do pay you to be the expert for these sorts of issues.”

“Yes, you do,” the realtor says, her brows rising. “And so I should let you know that a pattern of moving violations and a youthful disorderly conduct charge for dancing naked in the woods, while making for fascinating reading, hardly amounts to real complaints. So I don’t see anything to make a fuss about for the other two.”

“That’s a relief. After all, it would be very disconcerting if it turned out that _all_ the other bidders on the unit had criminal pasts. I’d need to see a second opinion on its curse and nexus history report, at the very least,” Peter says.

The realtor smiles again. She keeps her lips over her teeth, but the corners of her mouth flow back to nearly touch her ears. “I don’t think that will be the deciding factor with you and the last two. Will it?”

[Body language varies between types of weres, just as it does between various human communities, and can sometimes cause misunderstandings. Some ill-informed humans like to claim that weres have an advantage in contextualizing gestures because of their enhanced senses, but were-reptilians are a perfect example of how that doesn’t hold up: changes in their scent aren’t tied to their emotional states, so even without the meddling of scent-blockers, a werewolf like Peter is in the same position as a human in reading a were-reptilian’s body cues.

That said, awareness and training go a long way, and Peter chose this particular realtor precisely because of her long and successful record, both in serving were clients and in negotiating tough deals against other weres. So he’s positive she knows exactly how unnerving her inhumanly wide mouth looks.]

“Now, you and I went through our application with a fine-tooth comb, and certainly in more detail than the state court system when they certified me for ADR in the were community,” Peter sighs, while silently reminding himself that she’s no more and no less intimidating than any number of uppity alphas he’s had to confront over the years. “I’d think if anyone could find anything troubling in my or Stiles’ records, it’d be you.”

“I’m flattered,” his realtor snorts. “But unfortunately, that leaves us with just the board interview, since you can’t budge enough on the offer price. I’ve sent you a few emails with prep material, have you—”

“Stiles and I have been going over it. I think we can do the mock run this Friday, but I need to double-check with him about when his last exam is. I should know this evening and I’ll text you as soon as I do.” Peter starts to rise, then looks inquiringly at her. “I think that’s all, unless I’m mistaken?”

“Should be, at least for now.” For some reason, the realtor looks and sounds deeply skeptical. “I’ll just wait and see what you come back with, Mr. Hale.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Margays have such flexible ankles that they can run head-first down a tree trunk.


	2. Chapter 2

Frankly, the last person Derek ever wants to see is his uncle, but with the kind of day he’s having, he’s not that surprised to look up from Sourwolf and see Peter smirking down at him.

“Honestly, Derek, with that face I can’t help but think you _don’t_ want me here,” Peter says, holding out a bundle of familiar-looking fabric.

“Did you break into my closet again?” Derek says.

“One, it’s not breaking in if you have a key, and two, I have a key because your annoyance is much cheaper than having to post bail every time you lose your clothes,” Peter snorts. He tosses the shirt at Derek and then bends down to wiggle his fingers at Sourwolf. “And hello there, I see I may have to add animal welfare activists to the list of people your owner’s offended.”

“Why would they be after me?” Derek says, yanking his shirt down over his head. He grimaces as a low, disappointed murmur goes around the coffeeshop, then reaches down for Sourwolf’s leash, only to find that it’s not where he left it. Because his dog has gone and padded right up to nose at Peter’s hand. “It’s hot out, it’d be animal cruelty to leave him outside without any water. And they let pets in here.”

“Yes, they do, fortunately, so you don’t have to choose between another public indecency charge and giving your dog heat stroke,” Peter says. While petting Sourwolf, as if Peter even likes dogs. “I suppose the poor thing’s still young enough to get over seeing you naked yet again.”

“Peter, he doesn’t even know what clothes are,” Derek says. He grabs the leash and wraps up the slack, and then scoops Sourwolf up before the stupid dog can go from deciding Peter’s harmless to deciding he can actually _trust_ Peter. Sourwolf whines and twists his head around to look deeply unimpressed with Derek, who rolls his eyes and just tucks the dog further under one arm. “Besides, it’s your boyfriend’s fault I have to come downstairs just to clean up when I spill something on myself.”

“Honestly, Derek, you need to take a little responsibility once in a while,” Peter tsks. “Stiles isn’t at fault for everything that happens to you.”

Derek looks at his uncle. “He banned me from ever using the bathroom in his and Scott’s place. Which is literally why I’m down here, right now.”

“Yes, but did he make you spill whatever it was on yourself?” Peter says, as if that’s some inarguable truth.

[ _Honestly_ , Derek sometimes thinks that Stiles probably is responsible for things like that. He used to think it was Peter, but since his uncle and Stiles started dating, Derek’s learned that Peter is nowhere near that sadistic.

People think that Derek is paranoid. Sure, but Stiles alternates between lazing around in the sun and leaping down from high places so Derek snarls and goes claws-out, giving Stiles an excuse to swat him around, and the guy still managed to train a puppy to answer to nothing but ‘Sourwolf.’ And to pee and bark and savage the furniture of all the other people who tried to adopt him, till Derek finally took him, so now Sourwolf silently follows Derek everywhere, to the point that Derek, even with his werewolf senses, sometimes forgets the dog is there and turns to put something away and almost trips over Sourwolf and ends up with fucking cranberry juice not only soaked into his shirt, but dribbling into the crotch of his jeans. Which just screams werecat training.

So people should live Derek’s life for a day and then tell him he’s just making this shit up.]

“If you’re looking for Stiles, I’m pretty sure he’s still at work,” Derek says. “I need to go back up, Scott and I—”

“Oh, wonderful, I can speak to both of you at once,” Peter says airily, like Derek’s just invited him to go along.

Derek opens his mouth to tell Peter to fuck off.

“It involves getting Stiles to move out of this place faster so you can run out of excuses for not asking him if he’d like to get serious and move you in,” Peter says.

Derek closes his mouth. He looks at his smug, amused uncle, and then he looks at Sourwolf. His dog at least has the sense to not look at Peter, now that he’s not getting anything out of it, but then Sourwolf puts his head on Derek’s shoulder and lets out a small, irritable groan. Which is his warning sound for wanting to go back up so he can puke up a hairball in private, yet another sign that he’s been werecat-trained.

“I hate you,” Derek says.

Five minutes later, they’re in Scott and Stiles’ apartment and Scott is apologizing as he calls back the Thai take-out place to order more food, as if Peter needs a full stomach to be effectively evil. “Okay, I think I got them before they sent out our order,” Scott says, hanging up. “They said it’d be about fifteen minutes, so can I get you something to dr—oh, wait a sec. I bet that’s Allison and Erica.”

“Allison and Erica?” Peter says curiously.

“Yeah, they’re coming over for dinner too,” Scott says, going to the door and completely missing Derek’s panicked warning glare. “I don’t know if Stiles told you, but the pride’s got this zoning proposal up and I’m helping them with it.”

“Ah, yes, he did mention that,” Peter says, smiling like the werecat he’s screwing. “Well, the more the merrier.”

Just then, Sourwolf hacks up his hairball. He at least does it on the uncarpeted kitchen floor, so Derek doesn’t have to get out the carpet steamer, but cleaning it up keeps Derek from doing anything till Allison and Erica are inside and chatting with Peter. Derek does manage to grab Scott’s ankle as Scott passes him to get Erica a glass of water.

“Don’t do anything Peter says,” Derek hisses.

Scott frowns down at him. “What’s going on?”

“Yeah, Peter, enough gossip, let’s have the goods,” Erica purrs. She’s grinning to show her teeth and leaning way, way forward, to the point that Peter, who doesn’t believe any space is personal, shifts away from her. “You’re not over to just catch up with pride stuff, you’re totally looking for something and I, for one, wanna _see_.”

She says, as she reaches over and pokes Peter suggestively in the chest. Peter’s smile gets a little bit stiff and Derek doesn’t really feel sorry for him. On the other hand, Derek’s already seen way more half-naked Peter than he ever, _ever_ wanted to, thanks to Stiles’ habit of leaving doors open when he jumps Peter. So Derek bites back a sigh, checks that Scott’s expression is as exasperated as Derek feels, and then he and Scott start to flank out around Peter for an interception.

Which puts an extra smug glint in Peter’s eye as he delicately brushes off Erica’s finger. “Flattered, my dear, as always. But really, there’s nothing under there you haven’t seen on the full moon, and anyway, Stiles—”

“Does get all ‘grr’ whenever Peter loses clothes and he’s not around,” Allison says, making a casual clawing gesture with her hand.

“Selfish jerk,” Erica mutters. She shoots Derek and Scott the evil eye, then glances down at something. Then she squats to reach out to Sourwolf, who’s sniffed up to her, and scruff his neck and make stupid meeping noises at him. “Fine, whatever, forget about the foreplay. We got dinner and then this damn zoning thing that I don’t actually want to do, so what’s the deal, Petes? You and Stiles fighting? Need an in?”

“No, we’re very well, thank you,” Peter says. “Settled on a condo, as a matter of fact.”

“Oh, great!” Scott says, looking relieved. “Stiles has been really stressed about the search, so I’ve been trying not to ask, but I thought he’s been looking better…”

Peter looks odd for a second, surprised in a way that makes the hairs on the back of Derek’s neck prickle, and then he smiles at Scott. “It’s a lovely unit, and perfect for us. Unfortunately, and this is where I thought you might be able to help me out, we’re facing a couple competing bids for it.”

“Got it, you wanna scare them off,” Erica says, still playing with a madly tail-wagging Sourwolf.

Scott frowns. “Wait a second. Shouldn’t it be up to the—”

“It’s a condo, so the board that runs the building will have the final say under its bylaws, and all Stiles and I can do is try and put our best foot forward when they interview us,” Peter sighs. His eyes drift off to the side and he looks pensive. “I’m not sure if it’ll be enough, but…he really does _love_ it. Ideal location, and wonderful amenities…skylights and a fish pond…”

“Fish pond?” Erica says, perking up. “Damn. If I got to have a private fish pond, you don’t want to know what I’d do.”

Scott looks disappointed in her, while Allison, as she usually does around him, looks like she really wants to come over and make him feel better. And then she looks at Derek, presses her lips together, and…deliberately folds her arms over her chest, reversing the eager body posture. She tilts her head, making a point about something, and Derek blinks and frowns.

[Derek and Allison are mostly cool. She’s a hunter, but she’s been very respectful of both pride and pack issues from the start and she’s made it clear that she doesn’t want to compete with Derek for Scott. Which is a pretty big deal, considering even other weres don’t always get the idea that just because you’re open to group sex, doesn’t mean that you’re a doormat. But every so often she’ll do something like that, like he’s missing a cue here, and it’s not really insulting or angry, but it’s…sneaky, except sneaky usually doesn’t mean he’s supposed to be in on it, and having somebody think he should be is weird.

Somehow, Derek is pretty sure, this is also Stiles’ fault.

 _No_ , he’s not obsessed with the guy. He doesn’t even like him. Shut up.]

Meanwhile, Peter actually ignores the chance to make fun of them and just keeps on about this condo. “The price really is quite good too, it’s just our budget,” he says. “I suppose I should just be happy that the other people haven’t turned it into a bidding war, and we’ll still be able to argue our case, but…well, I don’t know. When our agent told us who the other bidders were, I couldn’t help but look them up and…the building is supposed to have a reputation for a strong board who care about were issues, that’s one of its biggest selling points…”

“Wait,” Derek says, because he knows that little uncertain upflick in Peter’s voice and he knows just how bad things are going to get.

But he’s too late, because damn it, but Scott’s already straightening up with his counselor face on. Because Scott’s sense for wrongdoing is second to nothing but his inability to let things like that slide, and that is great and leads to a lot of good for anybody being oppressed and Derek admires and supports it, but Peter is _not_ oppressed.

“What do you mean?” Scott says over Derek. “Are you saying you think the board might not—”

“Oh, I’m probably being paranoid. I’ve met a few of the board members in passing, you know, working on our pack’s governance initiatives,” Peter says. His face is all hesitant concern, down to the way he looks at Scott and then looks away, and it is a _lie_. “They seem upstanding enough.”

“Okay, so there’s not a problem,” Derek says.

Peter doesn’t look at him, though one of Peter’s shoulders twitches like he’d like to turn and stuff Derek in the cabinet. Derek is way too big for that now, but he’s also standing far enough back that Peter can ignore him without seeming to ignore him. He starts to move to fix that, and get Scott to pay attention, except that Sourwolf is in the way.

Sourwolf is supposed to be getting skritches from Erica, who, plopped cross-legged on the floor, grins up like a fucking werecat as Derek curses and hops over the bemused dog and then has to catch himself against the counter. “Competition’s got a record?” Erica says.

“Not a _criminal_ record,” Peter answers, making it sound like that’d actually be better.

“If they’re not doing anything illegal, there’s not a problem,” Derek says, glowering at Sourwolf. “I think I hear the take-out guy—” 

“Well, yes, everyone’s entitled to speak their mind, so if these people want to volunteer with one of those animal-rescue groups who insist werewolves shouldn’t be trusted with cats and so forth, that’s well within their rights,” Peter says.

[For the last goddamn time, weres aren’t actually the animals they shift into. Even if they were, it’s not like wolves mindlessly kill everything that they see—killing something to eat it is a _choice_. And if you think about it, for basically all the things that a were will kill and eat when they’re shifted, there’s a human culture somewhere who also eats it, and big deal that they _maybe_ cook it first.

Besides, it’s not like people are really that much more trustworthy with animals, anyway. Look at how they got dogs in the first place: kept the nice wolves as pets and got rid of the nasty ones. And don’t even try to tell Derek that cavemen just threw those dead wolves outside and let all that meat go to waste. If he actually was a wolf, he sure as hell wouldn’t go to sleep around a bunch of hungry-looking humans.

That said, just because Peter is occasionally on the right side of the argument doesn’t mean he isn’t always, one hundred percent, being evil about it.] 

“What _assholes_ ,” Erica breaks in. She’s gotten hold of Sourwolf again, and is clutching him in her arms like anybody here is going to bother getting past her fake nails—which are reinforced and fucking _shift_ with her to add a sparkly, completely functional extra two inches to her claws—to take him. “Are you kidding me? How have we not terrorized them out of town yet?”

“Because you can’t just do that, that just makes us look as bad as they think we are,” Scott says, though he’s looking pretty upset himself. “But on the other hand, I think that actually _is_ illegal discrimination.”

“It is, but obviously they don’t just come out and _say_ they’re going to deny your adoption application because of what kind of were you are,” Peter says. “But I’ve heard things about their group, and when I was researching the bidder, I did stumble across some nasty comments they’ve made online, and—”

Scott’s pulling out his phone. “What’s their name? And the name of this group they work with? Is it new? I thought I knew all the local adoption groups.”

“They’re moving in from out of town, and the group’s based in their old town,” Peter says, smiling oh-so-gratefully as he promptly rattles off names, addresses, job titles, emails and social media user account IDs.

“I can run them through my family’s contacts too,” Allison volunteers. “If that’s what they do in their spare time, I wouldn’t be surprised if they hang out with some of the fringe hunters out there.”

“Wait,” Derek says. “Wait, we’re doing all this and then if it turns out they are involved in that kind of bullshit, we’re going to what, tell the board they should toss these people’s bid?”

“No, obviously we report it to the proper authorities and allow them to handle it,” Peter tells him, brows raised, sounding just like he used to when he lectured Derek and his sisters about how _obviously_ you don’t gut a wild boar like that, you silly fools. “It’s not about the condo, Derek. It’s about doing what’s right.”

Looking distracted, Scott nods along as he wanders over to the fridge and grabs the marker off the dry-erase board there and starts scribbling notes. “Yeah, first we should check this out, and document stuff, and then tell Stiles’ dad and the were-relations office at city hall, and if it’s really bad, we should get the state, or maybe the federal—oh, is that dinner?”

“Here, let me and Derek get that,” Allison says, stepping forward and putting her hand on Derek’s back.

Actually, she smacks Derek and then lets that flow into a shove, and Derek is so busy trying to not choke in disbelief over Peter—Peter actually _said_ that. He said that.

“Every single fucking time I think he can’t top himself,” Derek finally manages to growl out, as he yanks open the door. “Yeah, yeah, whatever, I’m an asshole because I’m not just jumping up to go after the evil people with everyone else.”

“Well, if you cough yourself to death, you’re not going to be around to say I-told-you-so when they get their condo,” Allison says tartly. Then, while Derek’s looking at her in shock, she smiles at the fidgety, harried delivery guy. “Look, Derek, Peter’s playing Scott. But if these people are like he says, Scott would end up running into them eventually and do the same thing, and if he does it now, at least that helps more people. Also, it’ll get us moved in faster.”

“I said I know, okay, I’m not that much of an ass—wait. What?” Derek says.

“Here, I have it,” Allison says, pulling out her wallet. She starts to count out bills, so the delivery guy rudely shoves over the bags of food and Derek just grabs them before they slam into Allison’s chest. She nods at him in thanks and then dives into her purse again to make change. “Derek, how many times have you mentioned to Scott that you could help him out with the rent once Stiles has moved out?”

“Probably the same number of times you’ve told him that you can take over doing his security wards from Stiles,” Derek says. “Why?”

Allison digs out a last nickel and hands it to the delivery guy, who promptly goes for the elevator. Then she turns around and grabs the edge of the door, but instead of shutting it, she pulls it so that it’s shielding them from the kitchen—where Scott is earnestly talking on his phone about undercover stings and not listening to them anyway.

“And what does he always say? That no, that’s okay, he couldn’t put us through the trouble,” Allison tells Derek. “Derek, I love him, but I am tired of that, and I bet you are, too. And I know we said we’d not get in each other’s way, but honestly, don’t you think it’d be a lot better to work together on this? I mean, at the very least, it can’t be worse than how bad we’ve been failing on our own.”

“I’d like to say that makes sense, but you also sound a lot like my uncle right now,” Derek says. Glancing at Peter, who is not on the phone and who is nodding along while Allison speaks, and then smirking when she stops.

“Sorry, I know I do, but if it gets us in,” Allison says, leaning closer to Derek. “Because this is about pet adoptions and you have a dog, and we’re going to need a cover story. And then—”

“Then it’ll blow up and go crazy because everything Scott looks into does that, and Sourwolf is going to end up even more messed up than whatever Stiles taught him and.” Derek stops. “Wait. You want to use my dog. We’re going to get Scott to let us move in because of my _dog_.”

“I think he’s okay with it. Yeah?” Erica pipes up. At some point she crossed the room and now she’s standing right at Allison’s and Derek’s elbows, Sourwolf still cuddled in her arms. She looks down at Sourwolf, who pokes his tongue out, slurps his own nose, and then puts his head on her crossed hands and closes his eyes. “He’s cool with it. Also, don’t worry, I won’t let a _thing_ happen to him for real.”

Allison raises her brows at Erica. “ _You_ won’t?”

“Dog, werecat, bigots, obviously I’m in on this,” Erica says. “Besides, it’s about time you three got your act somewhere the rest of us don’t have to watch and gag.”

“I’m pretty sure that I caught you trashing my spare shirt the last time I came hunting with the pride,” Derek says.

Erica rolls her eyes. “Derek, we had a good time, all right? Those abs of yours are enshrined in my happy place. But outside of sex, you’re just not really my type, so let’s just be adults and move on, okay?”

“Sure, whatever,” Derek says. “So when are you going to give me my dog back?”

“Dunno,” Erica says, walking off.

As she goes, Sourwolf sleepily raises his head and peers around her arm. Derek rumbles in his throat and Sourwolf considers it. Then slumps over again, his tongue dragging out of his mouth a little bit.

“She’s kidding,” Allison says. Her hand’s on Derek’s back again, moving in slow, reassuring circles. “And if she’s not, I’ll deal with her.”

“Thanks,” Derek mutters. He looks from his so-called dog over to Peter—busy texting somebody, with the kind of smile that makes Derek want to hand him wet wipes—and then to Scott, who is still talking to whoever about investigations. Derek presses his lips together, then lets out a long sigh. “Well, if I have to do Peter’s dirty work again, at least I could get something out of it.”

“Derek, if you work with me on this, I _promise_ you, I’ll make sure it’s worth it,” Allison says. 

When she smiles like that, it’s a little bit like how Scott gets determined to fix something, and a little bit like how certain family members of Derek’s get supremely confident they’ll have their way in the end. And a little bit just Allison, warmly and genuinely concerned that Derek will believe her. Derek’s long since decided he can deal with her, but, he’s starting to think, he kind of likes her too.

“And you know, if you think about it, Peter’s going to owe you one if we pull this off,” Allison adds.

On second thought, Derek definitely likes her.

[He’s still not sure that Stiles isn’t involved in this, but he’s pretty sure that Allison can make up her own mind about things. Anyway, the sooner Stiles and Peter go back to just being obsessed with each other, the sooner Derek stops accidentally obsessing over them too. Allison makes that happen, Derek will happily do whatever she wants.] 

* * *

“Want me to get out yet?” Stiles murmurs, his lips running up the side of Peter’s neck

Peter opens his mouth, but all that comes out is a dry, creaky, exhausted moan. Just that much movement sends twinges from his jaw hinge down into his shoulders and upper back; his deltoids spasm, shifting them both. Stiles humps up against Peter’s back, purring madly, and then twists them half-over onto their side. The weight of Peter’s thigh suddenly falls against Peter’s wrung-out cock and Peter whines till Stiles, purring even louder, slings his hand under the thigh and lifts it up out of the way.

Of course, that allows Stiles’ drifting tail to swish up between Peter’s legs and dance against the tortuously over-sensitized skin of Peter’s inner thighs and scrotum. The strands feel like silk, and like little whippy needles, and Peter moans again, his knees jerking uselessly upwards till Stiles reaches around and closes one hand over his balls.

The sudden pressure makes Peter go rigid, and then he shudders his way back to boneless. Stiles’ hand does shelter his skin from the tail’s flicking, once he’s over the initial shock of the touch, and after a couple minutes of quietly reassembling his mind, he manages to rediscover the English language.

“Said you’d leave the rest for tomorrow,” Peter mumbles.

Stiles laughs. “Awww, Peter, you greedy bastard. Yeah, I _am_ gonna just finish my thing for Lydia in the morning, but come on, it’s only eight. You really wanna lie here and twitch around my cock all night? Weren’t we supposed to do more practice questions?”

The problem is, Peter thinks irritably, that unlike the vast majority of people he doesn’t constantly confuse evil with irresponsibility. Not that he’s admitting to being evil, but is merely reflecting on the fact that he works very, _very_ hard to make things happen the way he wants them to. “Yes, but I think we can cut it by a half-hour. Just heard from our agent, actually—another bidder dropped out.”

“Oh, really?” Stiles says. “Wow, that’s awesome for us. What happened, do you know?”

“Well, turns out they have some unsavory associations with fringe elements, and also their business is facing a boycott, so I imagine their finances don’t look quite as good as they used to,” Peter says. While smiling in pleasure because Stiles is lapping at his nape and rubbing one hand along his belly and it is purely physical enjoyment that is making Peter feel as if his position is superior to virtually everyone else’s on earth. “One step closer to your fish.”

“So good, mmmm, I can feel them squirming between my fingers already.” Stiles pushes his face into the back of Peter’s neck and purrs, and arches his cock even deeper into Peter, and wiggles his grip on Peter’s cock, and—

Anyway, a few minutes later, Peter’s dazedly recollecting his blown mind for the third time that hour when Stiles says something. Peter lets out a placeholder groan, then shakes his head to clear it. “Pardon?”

“I said, yeah, just one to go,” Stiles says. “Right?”

“Oh.” Peter makes a face into the pillow, and even the teasing nip of Stiles’ teeth against his neck can’t wipe away the grimace. “Yes. Right. One more bidder. I suppose—suppose we should get to those practice questions.”

Stiles makes a disappointed noise, but then pushes himself and pulls out. He steadies Peter’s rocking hips between his hands for a few seconds, then lets go and gives Peter’s shoulder a passing pat as he climbs off the bed. “Well, gotta just do our best! I’ll go get the flashcards—you want a drink, too?”

Peter whimpers.

“Yep, got it, energy shake right coming up,” Stiles says cheerfully, bounding off into the hall.

[Unfortunately, werewolf healing does nothing for depleted electrolyte levels. Not that Peter is in any way, shape, or form complaining about the enthusiastic, endlessly inventive, intensely pleasurable sex life he and Stiles have. Or envious of the fact that werecat metabolisms handle high-octane bursts of energy much better than werewolves. After all, Stiles’ manic periods have to be supported by napping away half the day, whereas Peter may move through life at a relatively slower pace, but being awake when others aren’t has provided him with many an advantage. As they say, entirely metaphorically, there’s no rest for the wicked.

Sometimes, if he’s honest, he does wonder whether a little more virtue would get him a few less dehydration cramps.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dogs do have hairball issues; generally it’s less common than with cats, though individual dogs may cough them up as frequently as a cat.


	3. Chapter 3

Look, the small-claims mediation program the Hales are running is actually pretty cool, and Erica says that as somebody who’s fond of the old-school settle it via battle methods. But they all knew that proposal of Peter’s was really just a slow-burning booty call.

The boys always think they’re so sneaky, when seriously, all you have to do to figure out Stiles is check your phone. If he’s into something, he feels compelled to analyze it for you at great length, with graphic illustrations, and starting about two seconds after he banged Peter, he was flooding Erica with screenshots of Peter’s tweets and photos from the guy’s Facebook page and grainy GIFs of the Hale pack’s parties.

[“Actually, I’m pretty sure he took this photo when he was still at Peter’s place,” Heather says, leaning over Erica’s shoulder. “That looks like naked butt in the shadow behind him, doesn’t it?”

“I said two seconds after he banged the guy, not after he _left_ the guy,” Erica says.]

Peter Hale is a little bit smoother than Stiles, but still, at the end of the day, he wants that werecat lovin’. Erica will give him props for being farsighted enough to also want to lock that shit down, and for even thinking that the best way to do that is to get Stiles’ dad and Lydia on his side. But farsighted tunnel vision is still looking through a tube, and so when Erica first hears that Stiles and Peter are facing competition for their dream condo, she rolls her eyes and pats Allison on the shoulder.

“Trust me, Stiles is gonna move out on time,” she says. “All you need to worry about is getting over Scott’s inability to see the awesomeness of live-in sex. Well, that and Derek being too grumpy to play ball, but I’ve seen you work, you can handle that.”

Allison thanks her, but still looks dubious. “Dad says the stuff he’s dug up will definitely knock out the first bidder, but there are still two more bids. Are you sure we shouldn’t—”

“Nah, let’s give Peter a chance,” Erica says. “I mean, if we didn’t think he could keep up, do you think Lydia would’ve ever let him pitch to us in the first place?”

So Allison goes back to working on getting herself and Derek listed on Scott’s lease, while Erica and Heather and Boyd place their bets. Heather wins the first one by guessing that Peter was going to drag _Scott_ into it instead of Derek, but then Boyd gets the next bet correctly picking that Peter was going to go back to Stiles’ dad and Chris Argent.

But Stiles’ dad and Chris can’t turn up anything useful. Peter doesn’t seem that concerned, and judging from how much of Stiles’ fur dusts his v-necks, they’re still having plenty of sex, so Erica figures the guy has a fallback. The pride redo the betting odds and soon Peter’s winning Melissa—who is way, _way_ savvier than her son, shame she’s always stuck at the hospital—an extra break from patrol when Laura and Cora Hale suddenly show up in town.

Erica has to help Stiles’ dad deal with some overzealous hunters so she misses the main show, and Derek ends up hiding in Scott’s apartment with his supposedly traumatized dog again—the coffeeshop downstairs actually keeps a toothbrush and a baggie of travel-sized toiletries behind the counter for Derek now—and won’t give her the story. But the last bidder hasn’t withdrawn, so whatever went down, it clearly didn’t work.

[“One of the bidders is an alpha werewolf,” Heather tells her. “I think they were trying some special werewolf negotiation technique.”

“What, eye-glow and snarl, and look at how much cooler my leather jacket is than yours?” Erica says.

Heather frowns at her. “That’s kind of speciesist, you know. It’s not like just werewolves wear leather.”

“Yeah, but that’s pretty much what happened,” Cora grudgingly admits, coming over to them. “Laura’s a lot better at handling betas, that’s all I’m going to say. Also, you guys have _way_ better snacks at your meetings.”]

It’s also apparently enough to get Lydia to come up out of her work wrangling the zoning board into just butting out of preserve management, since the next thing Erica knows, Lydia and Talia Hale are sitting down for lunch and a contrite-looking Peter is paying for it (nobody wins). Though then he and Stiles and Talia have dinner together later, and Stiles gets all excited about being invited up to help improve the wards on the Hale house (Boyd gets a free scratching-post resurfacing). Peter disappears for a day and a half, and when he shows up again, he’s wearing uncharacteristically relaxed-fit jeans and is smug as hell. So Erica’s pretty sure that things actually worked out the way he wanted.

Well, except that he didn’t get rid of the competition. He carries that air of sex-wasted superiority around for a few hours, then hits up Melissa at the hospital with some leading questions about access to medical records of former patients (Boyd wins five pounds of premium catnip). Melissa may have waited till her werewolf ex dumped her and Scott to get bitten and go werecat, but she’s caught up fast and she boots Peter out on his ass while telling him that safety is one thing but deliberately screwing with somebody’s mental health is another.

Which leaves Peter strolling across the parking lot like he just got Stiles and a fresh tester pack of edible lube flavors (Erica finally gets one, her very own bottle of the legendary homebrew Stiles came up with for his advanced distillation techniques final). Shortly after that, Peter makes a stop at a local gardening store, loads up the back of his car, and then drives out for the afternoon.

Peter comes back. There’s still a competing bid. Peter takes some time off work and Stiles’ dad starts getting calls about how Peter is vandalizing the local libraries with the spirals he’s scratching into the reading desks during late-night research sessions. Stiles starts looking worried and excusing himself from pride activities to go over and make sure Peter is eating and sleeping, and even Derek seems rattled.

[“Because he’s psycho, and now he’s psycho and losing,” Derek explains, sifting through a box of doggie toys. He squeezes one, then tosses it. When Sourwolf doesn’t go after it, he puts it back into the box and then takes out another one. “Supposedly, the last time he lost, Mom and him went camping in the woods for two days by themselves, and when they came back, he had blue eyes instead of amber.”

“‘Supposedly’?” Erica says. “Also, what’s with the toys?”

Derek shrugs. “I was three, I don’t actually remember, but Laura used to scare the hell out of me and Cora with that story. And I need to weed these out so I can fit my shoes in Scott’s closet, because hell if I’m taking Stiles’ old room. I’m still not sure he’s not going to boobytrap the bathroom before he goes.”]

When Derek gets rattled, Scott and Allison get concerned. And while Erica trusts Allison to have some sense—or at least get sniffed out by her dad, when he’s not busy ‘hiding’ under Stiles’ dad’s desk—she doesn’t trust Scott one inch. Sure, he’s always going to try to do the right thing, and he usually carries it off one way or the other. But it’s just, for the most pacifist werewolf on earth, he always seems to do it with the maximum number of explosions, and that’s even when Stiles isn’t around to supply the fuses. Erica likes a good fight but she’s not into _war_ ; you can’t run a hunt if everybody’s dead, right?

So Erica sucks it up and goes to Lydia, who is already exasperated with all of them. “I expected that man to show up two days ago,” Lydia fumes. “Who does he think he is, exactly? Somebody who thinks his incompetence will be overlooked? And you, are you joking, you bet on _Stiles_ to ask me for him? Have you completely lost your mind?”

Erica doesn’t answer that, and just makes sure Lydia has a glass of wine while they’re waiting. Thankfully, when he does show up—having texted for permission within a couple minutes of Erica arriving—Peter has the sense to bring her limited-edition Prada and the dirty laundry of the leading candidates for county court judge. He apologizes profusely, begs her forgiveness, drops about a zillion references to that fish pond Stiles loves, and then looks hopefully at Lydia. “But of course you already have the issue handled,” he says.

Lydia narrows her eyes at him. She puts down her empty wineglass and rests one finger on the rim, leaning back in her seat. “Well…no.”

Peter blinks. Then blinks again.

“They don’t have a criminal record, their social record is spotless too except for that brief mental-health leave, which of course isn’t grounds for any action,” Lydia says, her brows arching. She stares at Peter till he dips his head in acknowledgement, and then sits up, flicking her finger against the side of the glass as she withdraws it. “No sticky political entanglements, which is _quite_ an admirable accomplishment for an alpha. And no fear of your family either, though if I’d been—”

“Yes, Talia and I have discussed that,” Peter sighs. “Though there were certain pack considerations at play, and…that’s a separate matter, and—”

“Well, I won’t comment on your internal affairs,” Lydia says, with that little clip to her voice that is _totally_ judging. “At any rate, they haven’t provided any basis for an intervention on a pack-to-pack level, which means there’s also no real reason for the pride to try to intervene. So I suppose we’ll just have to do our best at the board interview.”

“Lydia, I don’t think you understand how serious this is,” Peter says, startled. He takes a step forward and his voice starts to rise. “Stiles _loves_ that unit. We’ve looked at virtually every unit that is available or has the remotest chance of becoming available in the next two months and that’s the only one he—”

“ _We_ ,” Lydia says again. She doesn’t raise her voice, but she puts the beginnings of a growl into it. “We will have to deal with the board, Peter.”

[“You get that we’re being polite, right?” Heather once points out to Derek. “If we really wanted to get you, we wouldn’t bother with the warning stuff, we’d just get you. But we know werewolves look at snarls differently, Scott’s talked that through with us to death.”

Derek looks resentful, and then grudgingly thoughtful, and then he gets that faintly dazed look people get when they realize that literal years of history are being completely rewritten before their eyes. Epiphany’s a good look on him, Erica’s not gonna lie. Too bad Allison’s kind of possessive.]

Peter inhales for another rant at her, and then, just as Erica’s thinking she’ll have to uncurl from her perch on the windowsill—when the sun’s just fallen perfectly across her back—his face suddenly clears. “Oh, I see,” he says.

“You’d better,” Lydia says. “Three days out and I haven’t been invited to a single mock interview of yours? What the _hell_ is Stiles teaching you about us?”

“Ah. Well.” For a second Peter fumbles with his smile. Then he smooths it out with a little more charm, while whisking a small envelope from somewhere. Honestly, more than how he is in bed, Erica really wants to know how he hides stuff without showing any bulges in those skin-tight shirts and pullovers. “Oh, before I forget, I do realize how inconvenienced you’ll be, so I thought a small token to show our appreciation…”

Lydia takes the envelope, which is way too thin for cash, and ticks it open with her fingernail. Then she drops the envelope into her desk drawer, sniffing, and stands up. “Yes, yes, VIP access to New York Fashion Week is only any good if I am not _needed_ here. Now let’s go. Erica?”

“Mmmmr?” Erica says, attempting to look as snoozy as possible.

Lydia looks silently at her, hands propped against hips, tail dropping softly out of bottom of the on-trend leather cut-out miniskirt. It curls up to the left, hangs there, and then abruptly swings right. Two seconds, and then it swishes back to the left.

“Okay, okay, keep your claws in, I’m just, I gotta find my jacket, geez,” Erica mutters, tumbling off the sill and scuttling way clear of Lydia as she grabs her things. “Chill out, I was just comfy, and how am I supposed to know you’d need me for something of theirs?”

“ _Out_ ,” is all Lydia says.

[“I thought you keep saying werecats don’t listen to people telling them what to do,” Derek frowns. “Shouldn’t that go for other werecats, too?”

Stiles and Erica and Allison look at him. Then Stiles laughs and leans past Derek to clap a pained-looking Scott on the shoulder. “You stay with him, I’ll go get the medical supplies and make sure we’ve got enough for when Lyds is through. Allison, you know how tourniquets work on weres, right?”]

* * *

Stiles is nervous about the interview with the condo association board, he’s not gonna lie. He hasn’t been as involved with the whole bidding process as Peter has, but not because he’s not taking it seriously. It’s just the whole thing coincides with a big pride project and the werecat gig comes with a lot of benefits, but teleportation isn’t actually one of them, and Peter’s calendar isn’t as full this month. But whatever Stiles can do, he’s done. He’s turned their financial statements into beautiful interactive graphs. He let Peter get him fitted for a new, custom, actually tailored to him suit. He’s done so many mock interviews that he should be able to do this in his sleep.

“You’ll do great, I know you will,” Scott says. “But we really should get going, otherwise we might run into traffic and you said you didn’t even want to chance being late.”

“I know, I know, but Scott, Scott, I can’t remember what the hell I’m supposed to say about my high-school detention record and I _know_ I had a flash card on that one and I can’t _find_ it,” Stiles hisses, scrabbling around on top of the bookcase. “Where is it? I was just looking at it last night.”

“Did you check above the kitchen cabinets?” Scott says, already going in there. He comes out a second later, shaking his head, though when he sees how panicky that makes Stiles, he immediately stops. “Um, what about under the couch?”

Stiles hops off the bookcase and stuffs his feet into his dress shoes. “Checked that, damn it, Scott, we’re not gonna find—”

“I figured out what that weird rustling noise was,” Derek says, coming out of Scott’s bedroom with—yes, a fistful of crumpled flashcards. “These and a bunch of empty potato-chip bags and—hey, can you not rip off my fingers?”

“Whatever, you can just stick ‘em back on,” Stiles mutters, frantically rubbing the cards smooth against his leg. He heaves a sigh of relief as he confirms that the card he needs is among them, then sticks them safely in his suitcoat pocket and turns around to…where are his shoes?

“Were you _hiding_ in Scott’s ceiling?” Derek is saying. “Do you—do you watch—”

“Oh, my God, no, it’s just warm up there, why would I watch you?” Stiles says distractedly, spinning around and around, looking all over the room.

“The venting has this kink in it that blows the air that way,” Scott says at the same time, waving something at—Stiles’ shoes. Scott is _awesome_. “He doesn’t watch, he blocked off the vent in my room to keep in the heat so there’s nothing for him to look out through.”

[Privacy’s a complicated thing just for humans, and then you add in supernatural senses that have evolved to shortcut the whole hey so are you guys hating or loving on each other small talk situation. And the whole naked-shift thing, and group-based conceptions of personal life. But that doesn’t mean that weres have _no_ sense of privacy, and people who think that are usually the jackasses who think they’ve hit the motherlode of entitlement and can just stick their hands down any female were’s shirt they feel like.

Seeing as Stiles does not want to be that kind of jackass, ever—stealing data is totally different, okay, he has an unpublished dissertation on this—he can see where Derek is coming from. On the other hand, Derek doesn’t seem to understand that it is integral to Stiles’ werecat identity to have the warmest, highest spot in the whole apartment at all times. Privacy keeps you covered, but warm spots keep you _warm_.]

Scott is also smart enough that, when Stiles jumps him in gratitude, he takes the chance to stumble out the door. And grabs their bags on the way out, and just generally keeps them moving along while Derek keeps bitching, now complaining about that’s why it’s always colder in Scott’s room and isn’t that unfair that he has to snuggle really, really close to Scott to keep his core temp up whenever he sleeps over.

“Oh, well, I didn’t know, but I’ll get you out another blanket,” Scott says as they get into the car. “Allison says she actually likes it a little colder, so I kind of assumed you were okay too, but I should’ve asked. Did you check the glove box?”

That last part is to Stiles, who’s run out of flashcards again and who knows he has more, and yes, more are in the glove box. And under his seat. And, despite Derek’s constant complaining about getting Stiles’ feet in his face, taped to the little shelf just behind the backseat headrests.

“Why the hell do you even have cards in these places?” Derek snaps. “Aren’t you supposed to put those in places you know you’ll spend time?”

“Yeah, exactly,” Stiles says. “Why are you whining about making sure I move out so you and Scott and Allison can crank up the thermostat to support your no-clothes habit?”

Derek opens his mouth, closes it, and then takes some flashcards and holds them up so Stiles can easily look between them and the cheatsheets he’s loaded onto his phone. He’s still muttering under his breath, but Stiles tunes that out and inhales interview prep till they pull into the parking lot of the place.

Peter’s already there waiting for him, spiffed up in the kind of suit that makes him look like he needs to be unwrapped and licked and—Stiles shakes his head, stuffs his hands in his own pockets as he gives his boyfriend a greeting nuzzle, and then plants his face in Peter’s shoulder. “This is going to suck and we don’t even have time for a destressor blowjob.”

“Now, Stiles, it’ll be—” Peter says, talking over Stiles. And hitching a little bit as Stiles gets to ‘blowjob.’ “—fine. I’m sure in thirty minutes we’ll be ready to celebrate.”

“We don’t have to drive them home, right?” Derek hisses at Scott. “If Peter’s car is broken, we can call them a taxi. I can get the pack to pay for it, they’ll understand.”

“I, um, I think…” Scott stammers. “Oh, hey, Lydia! Hey!”

Stiles looks up over Peter’s shoulder. Lydia is standing in the doorway with her arms crossed and her business face on, Stiles’ and Peter’s realtor right at her shoulder. She doesn’t even look amused that Scott sounds relieved to see her, just motions for them to get their asses over before she _handles_ them.

[Female leadership is still a problem for a lot of people, even other weres, and it is a stupid problem. Look, back in the cradle of civilization, if Stiles was being run down by a Cape buffalo and he was saved by a bunch of female werecats, is he going to feel like that’s more embarrassing than being trampled by a couple thousand pounds of pissy bovine? False dilemma, since you can’t be embarrassed when you’re _dead_.

And since he’s still alive, he’s going to be pretty willing to listen to what they’re saying, seeing as otherwise they’re not going to let him eat any of that dead buffalo, plus probably let a hippo squish him while he’s sleeping. Let’s not waste half the badasses in the world, all right?]

They file into the building and then take the elevator up to one of the upper floors, where there’s a common lounge and a meeting room. One of the board members greets them in the lounge, then asks them to just help themselves to coffee and have a seat; apparently the chairman’s running late, so the board isn’t ready for them yet. So Stiles goes to do that and then he stops dead, because also in the lounge are their opposing bidders.

“Oh, hi, Katie,” Stiles’ and Peter’s agent says, coming forward. “I thought you were scheduled for after us? Doing a little recon?”

“Yes, well, you know how it is, never hurts to see what you’re up against,” the other agent says. 

The two of them smile at each other and air-kiss, moving like they’re circling each other for a lunge. In contrast, Kali just strolls right up to Peter, grinning with her canines extended. “Hale,” she says. “You’re still in the game, huh. That thing with sending Julia the dead baby trees? Cute.”

“What happened?” Peter says, blinking. “That sounds simply awful.”

Kali laughs, then turns as her partner comes over and tucks an arm through Kali’s. This Julia leans her head against Kali’s shoulder, looking dainty and tremulous. “I guess they were trying to remind me of when I failed my druid exams,” Julia says, shaking her head. “That was really cruel.”

“Yes, it was,” Lydia agrees, with a warning lilt to her voice. “Fortunate for your exam partner that she managed to stumble across those campers, or else it might have been much more tragic than just your losing your nerve and taking the one car with you.”

Julia’s face gets a little stiff, while Kali’s eyes redden. “I don’t suppose you’d understand much about working with botanical entities,” Julia says dismissively. “But anyway, that’s in the past. I have moved on, thankfully, and I look at the whole thing as just one step to being the strong woman I am today.”

“Backed up by a good pack, and a good alpha,” Kali says. “Speaking of, Peter, how’s Talia? Still selling herself to the politicians? Bit soft, but a decent ride, I hear.”

Scott grabs Derek and yanks him out of the lounge just as he starts forward, and Allison, who’s just arrived, immediately grabs Derek’s face and kisses him. Seeing as Derek’s half-into shift, that is one were-accepting woman and Stiles makes a note to show her the good stash spots in their ventilation system before he moves out.

“She’s just been reappointed as county liaison for the werewolf community,” Peter says dryly. He’s not quite keeping his anger out of his scent, but his heartbeat has stayed steady. “I’ll let her know you were asking after her. It’s been a while since Talia stopped in your end of the county, and she does like to check in on all the packs.”

“Well, that’s very nice of her,” Julia says, curling closer to Kali. “It’s always good to travel and learn how to do things better—”

“Oh, hey, is that futhark?” Stiles says, pointing at the charms dangling from Julia’s bracelet. “That’s cool, people usually use futhorc.”

Julia blinks. She glances at Kali, who’s busy glowering at Peter, and then shrugs and gives Stiles a condescending smile. “Yes, well, futhark was the original form, and runes are more powerful—”

“But it’s a little mismatched with the Celtic interlacing,” Stiles goes on. “I mean, if you were gonna be authentic, shouldn’t you be using Ogham? I know there’s debate about how much the runic system came over with the Vikings when they were messing around in Ireland, but—”

“Excuse me?” Julia says, sharply enough to jar Kali out of her stare-down. She trills out an incredulous laugh, shaking her head. “This is a—I’m a certified druid and this is a charm bracelet, and you’re actually—are you actually questioning me?”

“Well…I guess, yeah,” Stiles says. “It’s a linguistics and history question, not a druid question, and anyway, I’m minoring in Celtic philology, which is about the same as what druids need for their certification.”

[Mages are snobs. Part of it is quality-control: think about it, if you were calling upon the forces of nature to do your bidding, would you want to be relying on dollar-store materials to keep out the backlash? But part of it, and Stiles knows this because he’s a snobby magic-worker himself, is just because hey, magic is _cool_ , and I can do it and you can’t and so there.]

Julia chokes a little bit, and when Kali reaches for her, she unhooks their arms and steps back. She’s shorter than Stiles but she pulls herself up, and suddenly it gets dark in the lounge even though it’s the middle of the day and sunlight was pouring into the windows behind him just a second ago, and the shadows around them get long and spiky and terrifying and make Julia look a couple inches taller. Her eyes have gone pure black, even the whites, and there are shiver-inducing crackles in her hair, which is spreading out from her head in an invisible wind.

“Listen to me,” Julia says, and her voice booms like thunder. “Listen well, and know exactly who you’re dealing with. I’m the air and the earth, the heart of the fire and the bite of the snow. I walk with the sun and the moon, and the rain comes at my call. All of nature will throw itself and bleed out at my feet in homage.”

“Stiles,” Peter says very quietly, his hand very tight on Stiles’ shoulder. “When I say, you—”

“What I say is what is _done_ ,” Julia cuts in, her lips red as blood and slashed into a wild, wide smile. “Because I. Am. _God_.”

Lightning flashes across the windows, and then the glass rattles as a sound like a cannon goes off. The lights flicker, go completely off for a heart-stopping second, and then come on full force.

Julia must not be expecting that, because she flinches. Her head twists a little and she blinks, and then she frowns at something behind Peter and Stiles, her eyes still sort of grayish but back to having pupils and irises. Stiles tugs Peter out of the way so that he can see without having to turn his back on Julia or Kali.

“Is that what you think?” the board chairman says, standing in the doorway of the conference room. Which is wide-open, the rest of the board peering through with equally unimpressed faces, with Lydia leaning against one door to hold it out of the way, casually filing a nail and not even looking up. The chairman slowly lifts one arm and then jabs her finger at Julia. “Well, Ms. Baccari, you might be God out there, but in front of this board, you’re just another applicant. You sit down and wait your turn like everybody else. Mr. Hale and Mr. Stilinski, are you ready?”

“Yeah, I think so, and I just want to start off by saying, we really, really appreciate this opportunity,” Stiles says. “We know how busy you must be.”

“Petit fours?” Peter says, whisking out a platter of little cakes color-blocked into looking like stained glass. “I hope you don’t mind the presumption, I just find that discussions go better on a full stomach.”

The chairman looks at them, then smiles.


	4. Chapter 4

The fish pond in Stiles and Peter’s condo is amazing. So are the adjustable skylights. And the combination of the two is criminally relaxing.

“So worth it,” Stiles mumbles, lolling his head on the cushion. Then he shifts out again, twisting his hips and tail around so that he flops around a dozing Peter.

Peter grunts and hitches against his shoulders, forepaws drawn up above his exposed belly. Then he turns over, burying his muzzle under Stiles’ breast as Stiles throws a fore- and a hindleg over Peter. Stiles tilts his head back and opens his mouth in an enormous yawn, his jaw hinge clicking, then shuts it. He drops his head on Peter for a second, then sits back again. Then he puddles out till his head’s drooping to where he can lick at Peter’s ruff without having to move. Peter grunts again, then starts to emit a series of increasingly draggy, pleased groans.

“Are you seriously going to do this all day?” Derek says from the greenhouse doorway. “You’ve been up here for three hours.”

If Stiles felt like shifting to human vocal cords, he’d point out: _adjustable skylights_. So it doesn’t matter the time of day, that sunbeam is never getting away from them.

“Okay, fine, I’ll just tell Lydia you’d rather nap,” Derek mutters, stalking off.

[Oversimplifying. Werecats sleep a lot, but they need all that sleep, and the sun is free energy waiting to be absorbed. And as Peter’s the rare werewolf who seems to grasp that, Stiles thinks he deserves to be rewarded. Besides, if anything, he’s even more exhausted than Stiles, what with all the stunts he’s been pulling lately.

So. Yeah. Of course Stiles knew what Peter was doing. Stiles was busy with pride stuff, he didn’t forget who he’s sleeping with.

…did Stiles maybe leave Peter to do all the heavy lifting? Well, look, Stiles legit had other things, and Peter volunteered, and they might be living in an enlightened era that’s a lot better about taking a holistic approach to were identity, but that doesn’t mean all the traditions got tossed out. Werewolves like to prove they can get things for their mates, and werecats place a lot of value on having members pull their own weight. Peter’s been really cautious about working his way into the pride, and the pride in turn has been eyeing him up this whole time, even if Lydia doesn’t exactly come out and ask Stiles whether he is, in fact, settling for a kinda-shady, often-smarmy, very hot but very tricky werewolf. So from a personal and a group perspective, it just seemed better to let Peter do his thing, and _no_ , it’s not just using Peter. If the words ‘go’ and ‘fetch’ come out of your mouth, Stiles is going to stuff them back in with his claws.

But okay, it is what it is, and as far as that goes, Peter totally showed he’s got the chops.

Good boy.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't going to write a sequel to _The Truth about Cats and Dogs_ , but then I looked at one too many of those high-end pet accessories and started thinking about what would go into an ideal werecat home.


	5. Bonus Scene: Derek, Stiles, Peter (and Sourwolf) on Hairballs

“Sourwolf,” Derek says in warning, seeing his dog wander off. He’s already on edge since it’s Stiles and Peter’s new condo, and the last thing he needs is to have Stiles come charging out of the air vent, accusing him of getting dog drool on the wallpaper or whatever. “Sourwolf. _Sourwolf_. Come back and—and _do not touch that._ God, do not touch that.”

He lunges and scoops up his dog just as Stiles appears around the corner, carrying a plastic bag, a bottle of carpet shampoo and a bristle brush. Stiles looks at him, then at the thing on the carpet. The oblong, furry, disgusting mush pile that is leaking clear fluid out of its guts, and thank God for selective scent wards because if Derek was smelling that as well as seeing it, he just might never come back here.

“You can ratchet down the gag-me face a couple notches,” Stiles snorts, bending over and spitzing the mush. “Seriously, it’s a natural process. Stuff goes down, stuff must come out, and better this way than via surgical means. And if you don’t believe me, I’ve got a couple _Extreme Hairballs_ episodes you should watch.”

“I’d rather dig out my eyes and stuff the sockets with wolfsbane,” Derek mutters. He starts to turn around, but then Sourwolf, who for some reason is fascinated with that thing, tries to climb over his shoulder. So he grabs Sourwolf by the scruff and that ends up turning him back just as Stiles stands up, bagged hand holding the majority of the hairball, and. And. Why doesn’t Derek’s brain just _stop_. “Why is it that color?”

“Color?” Stiles says. Then he frowns and tilts the hairball for a closer look. “Looks normal to me.”

“It’s black,” Derek says. “How is that normal, you’re orange. Please tell me you don’t have some bizarre intestinal disease that Peter’s going to—”

Peter comes in. He happens to cross a sunbeam that floats over his shoulders and most of his head, and specifically, his hair. Which is. Which is.

“If you’re going to puke, do it on the tile,” Stiles says irritably. “I had an excuse, I stupidly ate too much of Scott’s mom’s world’s greatest bean casserole and forgot how much farther the bathroom is here, but you’re just being precious for a guy who does, in fact, bury deer guts for later.”

“Really, Derek,” Peter says. “This can’t be that surprising. You should _use_ logic, not let it use you.”

“Why am I _here_?” Derek manages to groan, right before taking Sourwolf and retreating to the kitchen.

“Bio-shaming isn’t cool, Derek!” Stiles yells after him.

Derek sits down with Sourwolf in his lap, and his dog licks at his hand. It helps. And then Derek thinks about it, and it kind of stops helping, and Derek just…tries to think of something else. Something. Anything.

* * *

“Listen, if you ever start throwing up orange fur, we’re gonna have a problem,” Derek says, holding Sourwolf so that they’re eye to eye. “You got that?”

The dog looks at him. Sourwolf’s face and fur have filled out since Derek adopted him, so that the damaged ear is no longer that noticeable, but Sourwolf’s eyebrow tufts are still really prominent for the size of his face. They always look like they’re raised a little higher than they need to be.

“I’m just,” Derek starts, and then he sighs. He puts Sourwolf down and the dog sits and continues to look up at him. “Okay, fine. Fine. You want a bone, right?”

Sourwolf pricks his ears.

“Goddamn it,” Derek says, and goes to get him his chewbone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The texture of a hairball as you pick it up, even through a plastic bag, is one of the grossest things in the world. Cats are lucky they look so cute as they watch you clean up their mess.
> 
> This was kind of an obvious joke, but I'm taking a quick mental break from working on a _Sustainable Management_ piece, and also shaping out a Western Stiles/Peter epic idea (for which you can blame Denzel Washington on a horse).
> 
> ETA: For the record, there's a perfectly innocent explanation - Stiles is enthusiastic about social grooming and Peter appreciates a well-kept coat of fur.


End file.
